Previous applications by Nigel Power LLC have described a wireless powering and/or charging system using a transmitter that sends a magnetic signal with a substantially unmodulated carrier. A receiver extracts energy from the radiated field of the transmitter. The energy that is extracted can be rectified and used to power a load or charge a battery.
It is desirable to transfer electrical energy from a source to a destination without the use of wires to guide the electromagnetic fields. A difficulty of previous attempts has been low efficiency together with an inadequate amount of delivered power.
Our previous applications and provisional applications, including, but not limited to, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/018,069, filed Jan. 22, 2008, entitled “Wireless Apparatus and Methods”, the entire contents of the disclosure of which is herewith incorporated by reference, describe wireless transfer of power.
The system can use transmit and receiving antennas that are preferably resonant antennas, which are substantially resonant, e.g., within 10% of resonance, 15% of resonance, or 20% of resonance. The antenna(s) are preferably of a small size to allow it to fit into a mobile, handheld device where the available space for the antenna may be limited. An efficient power transfer may be carried out between two antennas by storing energy in the near field of the transmitting antenna, rather than sending the energy into free space in the form of a travelling electromagnetic wave. Antennas with high quality factors can be used. Two high-Q antennas are placed such that they react similarly to a loosely coupled transformer, with one antenna inducing power into the other. The antennas preferably have Qs that are greater than 1000.